Tuesday, May 08, 2007

was my answer to Abang Leman last weekend during the MC-VI match (Note 1) when he asked the million dollar question.

Our mailbox nowadays is being bombarded with announcements of new additions to the family. I actually have lost count because it seems this is really musim mengawan! Anyway the few that I can remember:

A few years back, it was musim berkahwin – each month and holidays especially was full with weddings; habis uwang ku membayar petrol (not that I went to most of it!).

Somehow the bottleneck now is just the remaining dying species; mostly the UK guys ha ha. I don’t know what went wrong but yeap – most of us are still single (masuk lah meminang kalau berani, salah satu hantarannya adalah hair treatment at Yung Nam; you know the hair treatment centre…)

Let me try to put together some coherence in whatever is left in my battered brain and recap:

Sukan-Terer- Inter-house bowling went well but did not change the ranking.- The Guavas actually made it second (The Guavas tu aku, Allen & Jita laa… Fadli mula2 nak stay kat lane kitorang tapi dah kena halau) so each of us contributed 7 points to Leman, Md Shah and Ahmad respectively. Waaaaaa that’s more than the total points I ever contributed to Leman in koleq!- I have abdicated my role as the standard bearer of Leman’s offensive in Carey Award Race to Radin – who managed to maintain a top spot for April collecting 10 points (unfortunately he was the only one in the top 8 so hampeh jugak Leman)- The next games are Winning 11 (ye ke ni?), engineered by Ahmad Paku Pakis because semua playernya Ahmad, golf tournament and futsal in August- Mental note: “He he bile kau nak kawtim ngan koleq, nanti ada orang kena buang batch and no dobi kau dilelong kat batch lain…. “

Melaka- Allen, Canoe (Class of 93), Izzat (Class of 04) and I went to Port Dickson and then Melaka for a short break.- Spent a good time with Mpro and was actually trying to get Gedebe to join, tapi Gedebe tak angkat phone.- According to Mpro, Gedebe la ni dah jadi timid, especially since his wife is a cousin to Mpro’s clerk, who has this habit of buli orang…. So Mpro pun ambik kesempatan laa

World School Debate Championship- Both our boys, Haqqa and Bucks (Class of 2006) made it through to the last 12 short-listed to represent Malaysia to Seoul in July for a World School Debate Championship after a series of screen test and mock debates.- Of importance here is the fact that they were the only remaining Malays selected; all the others did not pass the earlier rounds.- By “the others” I meant the PPM Champions, the UIA Champions, the whatever competition champions – which speaks volume of the quality of adjudication and integrity at the school levels in debating competitions in this country.- In fact last year’s PPM Champion boys from Sekolah Sains Seremban were allowed to skip the earlier rounds and went straight to the pen-ultimate stage but….. - Likewise the boys from RMC which never fail to get recognition at the SBP level even if you could barely understand what they were saying much less comprehend their points….. oooo well….- Do I feel vindicated? Hell yes. - I pity the boys/girls because it’s not so much of their doing; it’s the adults who became judges. They created a superficial world for these Malay/SBP kids without ever giving a second thought of the detriment it brings to them – eventually we reward mediocrity and SBPs are not more than just a production line to produce bog standard mediocre people in the future.- In the end Haqqa was selected a reserve for the Malaysian team (the All-Stars of Malaysian debaters) – would have been a lot more meaningful if he got to debate; but he did say the others were better so it was a fair and square selection process. It’s better to lose to a deserving team with pride and honour rather than to win undeservingly.- Still, you guys proved that the champions of many debating tournaments in this country are not necessarily the best debaters; most of the time they happened to get the most sympathetic and biased adjudicators ha ha

Anak Itik in SBP Tournament- Anak-anak Itik akan berlari bergedek-gedek atas turf di Sungai Petani beginning this Thursday, we have arranged for coaches to take turns to look after the team (except on Friday since nobody can make it)- It’s not really the end of the world if we lose, but we really need to boost up their morale. They have lost most of the big games and all the tournaments they participated so far – understandably so since everything is in such a mess; yet if we were to lose it will compound the problem- Sometimes I am quite half-hearted myself (ha ha ha habis la aku kena balun lepas ni) because it can be very tiring and frustrating navigating so many obstacles; but the bigger motivation (more than anything else) is seeing my batchmates really into this. The sparkle in their eyes when they talked about the boys (he he bukan yang jambu sahaja, semuanya ha ha ha) showed a different side of them which I have not seen before – especially with people whom I was not really close to in koleq (e.g. Joe, Badut, Chibiok etc.) - Anyway occasionally I am also reminded of the ordeal we had to put up when we started out with the debaters in 2003/04. Somehow it’s human nature that we tend to make things difficult when things are already bad – so it’s a double jeopardy of overcoming those obstacles while getting the boys to deliver. Once the boys have delivered, all the labyrinth of red tapes yang macam sarang labah2 sebelum ni will just disappear.- But anak2 itik sekalian – we have a long way to go before that so apa nak buat. Rest assured though, Insya Allah bapak2 itik, ibu2 itik dan abang itik (itu aku ye..) will stick through thick and thin as promised; even if it means we have to take bloody leave in the middle of the week to make a day trip to bloody Sg Petani… aku sunggggggguuuuuh malaaaaaaas to make that trip Badut woiiiii..

Chamat and The Boys- Ha ha nothing dodgy, bukan ala2 Ella & The Boys yang mencuri lagu Loque (tapi Bobo lagi teruk, dia beli CD ciplak Butter…. patut buang batch tu!)- Chamat came back to koleq last weekend to help the preparation for English, since Fazurin is not around anymore and Haqqa had to rush back for his WSDC training, leaving only Bucks (blushing all the time and mostly making lewd jokes and comments!)- I have to salute these people, who came without knowing the kids, took them under their wings as if he had known them forever and continued as if he had been the main coach all along- Worse still, it wouldn’t be long before they got along so well that Chamat and some of the kids ended up playing cards till 3 am in the morning! Chamat even taught the kids how to shuffle properly ha ha- Left alone and trying to catch some sleep in the middle of the marathon of card games, I could only smile thinking that the transformation is almost complete; not unlike a devious Darth Sidius smiling quietly after hatching a devious plot (why is it that Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidius is a better representation of wickedness and evil compared to Sauron or Morgoth?)- When I first came back, one of my missions was to teach the kids to laugh and play, so that they are not so uptight and serious. I think they have outdone me now in both respects ha ha ha- Chamat was also touched by the kids I guess, because when asked whether he can make it for SAKTI in 3 weeks’ time, his answer was “INSHA ALLAH”. Bergegar ‘arasy.